Progressive Factor II: Lacrimosa Of A Reaper

New Years' Gamble: Fuscus the Vacant Colossus

"That's...a totally different name," Mito gasps. Jaymes' heart drops at that moment, and so does his defense stat as the monster emits a chamber-shaking roar. They all wobble on their legs but maintain their footing along the wall, not stepping on the now rapidly moving lines. The cry also has a secondary effect: debuffing everyone's defense.

"Stick to the plan," Diavel roars, shaking everyone else out of their stupor. "Observe the blue lines, be mindful of the circles coming from the floor and ceiling. When a limb appears, dodge and counterattack!" Around the chamber, the other players respond with fire, not losing morale over Fuscus' appearance and opening move. Diavel then eyes Jaymes, gives him a thumbs-up, then runs along the wall towards his party nearby.

On the other side of the four girls, Kirito gives Nezha some instructions. Once Nezha scurries off to a distance, Kirito faces his party. "I'm going to trigger a line on purpose-get ready to use sword skills!"

"You betcha!"

"All right!"

"Ready!"

"Let's go!"

Jaymes doesn't boast a vocal response to Kirito's plan, but he watches the swordsman watch the lines along the floor as they begin to slow down. Until they do something about the limbs, they have a low chance of bringing down and attacking the head. The room's design and prior gaming experience favor that strategy, and if they had more time, maybe the boss quests would have revealed more of Fuscus' secrets.

"Here we go!" Kirito steps on one of the blue lines, which reacts instantaneously with a circle forming under his right foot. He leaps out of the way just in time to avoid a black arm passing through the floor. At one time, Jaymes' party attack the hand with sword skills. After six powerful lights slash and pierce around it, the hand retreats alongside a fierce roar from the ceiling. Fuscus, its head still poking out the top of the chamber, is unhappy about the attack.

But its first of six health bars is dangerously low.

Preparing to counter, Fuscus' mouth widens, and the strange symbol on top of its head flashes red. But whatever it had planned, it's halted by a flying circular object-Nezha's chakram-that strikes the symbol on point. As the color returns to blue, Fuscus' face shrinks back into the ceiling, its twelve eyes and mouth shutting close.

"Is that it..." Jaymes murmurs to himself. Seeing nothing else was going to happen. Glancing at Kirito, Jaymes takes the plunge by stepping on another line. This time, the circle appears at the ceiling, so he bounces back as a black foot slams down on the floor, then the six hit it with another round of sword skills.

"That's it!" Diavel shouts. "Let's attack in this procedure! Nezha, you watch for its debuff attack and cancel it! We can do this if we watch carefully, got it!"

"Affirmative! We'll try attacking next!"

"We will, too!"

"And us over here!"

"Don't count us out!"

Hafner, Agil, Okotan, and Klein reacted quickly. Aside from Jaymes' party and omitting Nezha, everyone else was scattered from their respective groups into three mixed groups, But that didn't stop any of the twenty-two raiders.

xxxxxxxxxx

For ten minutes, the pattern of stepping on a line, avoiding and attacking the limb, and canceling another debuff roar worked in their favor. With all four limbs being attacked, three of Fuscus' six bars of health were wiped out in a matter of ten minutes. It continued until halfway into the fourth health bar. The plan was to regroup and retreat momentarily when a health bar was emptied, but Fuscus hadn't changed attacks, leading to some complacency. And had not Nezha called out, Jaymes admits he would not have noticed that the walls, now lined with the blue lines, were moving.